Suspected Boko Haram insurgents attacked the outskirts of a state capital in northeastern Nigeria on Friday, escalating their attacks after a week of bloodletting in which more than 150 people were killed, military sources said.
Heavy gunfire was heard coming from the fringes of Maiduguri, the capital of Bornoa state, for about half an hour on Friday evening. Military sources said insurgents attacked a village on the edge of the city but were repulsed.
There were no immediate details on casualties.
Boko Haram fighters tried to take Maiduguri a number of times earlier this year before an army offensive drove them out of large chunks of territory.
The militants have since resorted to deadly hit-and-run attacks on settlements and using suicide bombers. They have intensified their strikes since President Muhammadu Buhari vowed to crush them when he was sworn in on May 29.
Before Friday's attack on Maiduguri, gunmen killed nearly 50 people in a village on Tuesday, rounded up and shot dead about 100 in Kukawa on Wednesday and killed 12 in a dawn raid on another village on Friday. Two suicide bombers killed at least 10 people along a highway on Thursday.
